Let's build a Moon village, says European Space Agency's new director

boing
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Yes, but, MOONBASE!

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If only we could ā€œaffordā€ to convert our closed economy of dwindling resources into an open one of practically unlimited room and materials. Itā€™s almost as if some people actually benefit from having it this way. /s

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while ($noMoonBase) { 
`wget http://change.org/moonbase?answer=yes`; 
}
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Or once having launched them, we could operate them in zero-gee as satellites instead of expending a lot of extra energy dumping them back down another gravity well so they can cost more and perform worse.

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While yā€™all argue the merits of all thisā€¦

I got dibs on opening the first moon village bar!

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The real benefit of a lunar location is to build the equipment needed there from lunar raw materials. Send up 3d printers. Have small printers print giant printers. Giant printers print Moonbase. Dream Achieved. Then use solar powered railguns to launch processed fabrication materials out of the low gravity well to low and geosynchronous earth orbit to really build some shit.

Yeah, read too much Heinlein and Clarke.

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Mooncrete 3d printer!? Mooncrete 3D printer!?

Iā€™ll take a Bakers dozen.

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Best put a sleep in thereā€¦

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nah, and iā€™m gonna fork it a few thousand times. BWAHAHAHA (hacking cough) HAHA!

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Duuuuude! Whatā€™s up with that cough today? You testing pineapple gravity bongs?

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boiling and taste testing reduced vinegars. my house has an atmosphere with a ph of like muriatic acid.

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Book about, um, that, more or less.

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But who will be the shareholders and how on earth will we generate profits for them? Call me small minded and provincial but at least Iā€™m considering my fiduciary responsibilities! Now a gas well in the arctic circle, or a coal mine in the amazon basin, those might see some ROI for my friends in industry. They are, after all, the captains of this ship.

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34

I wouldnā€™t drink in the moon village bar.

Thereā€™s no atmosphere.

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Lucia Pamela should really get first dibs when it comes to moon colony names.

37

Summarised: the new ESA director is an idiot who is completely disconnected from the realities of space. Yay.

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38

Itā€™s true. So letā€™s go live in huts and eat dirt out of shame. That will certainly help a lot of people.

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What, are we short on human lives now? Plenty more where those came from.

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I like the torus idea, too, but it would have been nice to have an illustration of an actual LUNAR village ā€“ att least some of the promotional artwork from 2001: A Space Odyssey?